Gallery: Don鈥檛 drop it! Inside an astronaut鈥檚 tool bag
REPAIR or replace? In these frugal times, you would think the answer would always be a resounding repair. But surprisingly, until the final mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope last May, any instrument that failed on board was simply replaced. When two essential imaging instruments stopped working in the period running up to the mission, however, the crew decided a more sustainable approach was needed.
This was no easy task. 鈥淲e know how to replace instruments and electrical connectors but we had never attempted to go inside the guts of an instrument and fix it in space,鈥� says , deputy programme manager for Hubble at NASA鈥檚 Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Repairing such complex equipment is usually done on a sterile bench inside a laboratory cleaner than an operating theatre, with each step taken painstakingly precisely 鈥� not something easily done in a pressurised spacesuit.
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It required a completely new set of tools to be built for the job, which had to be easy for the astronauts to use, electrically neutral, and able to prevent the screws and bolts from floating off into space as soon as they were loosened.
The image above shows one of these bespoke tools. This washer extraction tool was used to remove washers from the outer casing of one of the failed instruments so the crew could access its circuitry. By threading them onto its long aluminium needle, the washers were prevented from escaping. Its floral-esque head is designed to be easily gripped by a gloved hand, and the ring at the bottom allowed it to be tethered to a spacesuit when not in use. So far only three have been made 鈥� two for the repair mission and one for ground testing. According to Weiss, the tool worked 鈥渇lawlessly and it, or a tool like it, will become part of NASA鈥檚 kitbag for future use鈥�.
The photograph was taken by in the clean room at the Goddard Space Flight Center just before the last repair mission, in the most restrictive conditions he has ever worked in. He was kitted out in a nylon 鈥渂unny suit鈥�, with boots and latex gloves, and his equipment had to be disassembled and chemically bathed beforehand. Soluri used black and white film to enhance the still-life quality of the photographs. 鈥淲hen you take the tools out of context they quickly become unique pieces of sculpture or engineering art,鈥� he says.
See more of Soluri鈥檚 images: Don鈥檛 drop it! Inside an astronaut鈥檚 tool bag
